Explorers Room with Flash Strap:
Playlist
from September 13, 2018

This is where all of culture and all of time are collapsed into one seductive portal and viewed through the panoramic lens of the exotic. Come and embark on an armchair-travel virtual-voyage to the heart of timeless darkness and beyond; embrace the numinous monolith of the exotic immensity. Let us find that place where hybridization meets its destiny as pure fantasy. Let us become observers observing those others who are ourselves. You wear your mask and I'll wear mine.

Thu. 9/13/18 8:18pm
Franco Twinkie:
Flash, this is excellent music to sit out on the front porch and groove on a late summer afternoon. Even though I'm sneezing my goddamned head off! Rag weed or some such shit.

Thu. 9/13/18 8:20pm
Flash Strap:
i hate when early-autumn/late-summer allergies strike back like that

Thu. 9/13/18 8:22pm
Flash Strap:
this LP reminds me somewhat of the Yusef Lateef / Martin Denny strategy of adding an unexpected instrument to the ensemble and showcasing it – not quite as rich as either Denny or Lateef but it's sort of the big trick of exotic/psychedelic music

Thu. 9/13/18 8:25pm
Flash Strap:
of course it's also a mainstay of library music to have multiples of the same groove with different lead instruments subbed in, or to have "underscores" where the leads are taken out altogether

Thu. 9/13/18 8:26pm
Flash Strap:
@G: not sure if he has any original soundtracks to his name, but his library themes have definitely been used in things

♥
Thu. 9/13/18 9:01pm
melinda:
@Flash totally. I need more in my collection. It's especially fun to play in the store where I work. I like the idea of people walking into a movie they didn't know they were going to be in.

♥
Thu. 9/13/18 9:10pm
chresti:
I like to have this playing where I work too!

Thu. 9/13/18 9:11pm
Flash Strap:
i have a few more library shows in the works for the near future, once I get the various series a bit more complete: Telecineradio/TVMusic (Chappell); Cenacolo, Tele Music, Coloursound, Studio G

♥
Thu. 9/13/18 9:11pm
melinda:
hi Franco! No storm here, though there is a high surf advisory.

Thu. 9/13/18 9:13pm
Franco Twinkie:
So right you are, Flash. If I could just make myself get rid of all the bland records in my collection, maybe I could walk through the living room without tripping and falling on my face.

Thu. 9/13/18 9:16pm
Flash Strap:
it's hard with library stuff Franco, because the treasure is right alongside the bland on the same records pretty regularly

♥
Thu. 9/13/18 9:16pm
melinda:
We have tiny cheap speakers at the store so I think everyone would be underwhelmed, actually. But what's nice about good library music is that it is probably unexpected music, yet unlikely to provoke a negative response (this has happened before) since it is intentional background.

Thu. 9/13/18 9:24pm
Franco Twinkie:
Programming through repetition. When I was teenager my sister and myself would play the Mothers of Invention until my mom would sing along, then catch herself and say "Turn that crap off!"

Thu. 9/13/18 9:25pm
Flash Strap:
selections from vol. 17 courtesy the drummer stream's own Tony Coulter, the only person in the world who seems to have this record and who ripped to tracks for us tonight

Big sincere thank you to Tony! These are easily two of the best selections of the evening

Thu. 9/13/18 9:26pm
coelacanth∅:
have to reboot my computer. i put it in sleep mode earlier, as an experiment. it has nightmares i guess then takes it out on me. see yin 10-15

♥
Thu. 9/13/18 9:26pm
melinda:
I don't know if much of what I have might qualify as library music but I have some good film music and other instrumentals. The other day I was playing Herb Alpert's Rise, and a lady commented that it sounded like 007 music, which it did. And I made a mental note to seek out more atmospheric instrumentals.

♥
Thu. 9/13/18 9:41pm
melinda:
@coel I use the term broadly, not very good at identifying it either.

Thu. 9/13/18 9:43pm
Flash Strap:
Hi Dean! yeah man I don't have the bread to buy every last thing I want to play on this show, sadly. sometimes i gotta rely on the kindness of strangers, so to speak

Thu. 9/13/18 9:44pm
Flash Strap:
@C. : a lot of times you can just go by the label

Thu. 9/13/18 9:44pm
coelacanth∅:
i understand the concept; but without researching particular artists &/or labels how am i to tell whether it's library music or just an artist that doesn't know that his or her music sounds generic?

Thu. 9/13/18 9:48pm
Dean:
For sure. Same predicament here. There are those occasions when I force my kids to go without dinner, because, well, priorities. But completing a collection would weigh heavily in favor of going for one title over another.

I've always assumed library music was composed and recorded to market to industries seeking royalty-free "background" music. In essence they stocked a "library" of tracks for those industries.

Thu. 9/13/18 9:48pm
coelacanth∅:
so - why would this track be called library music? just because it was commissioned?
i mean it's far more interesting than 1/2 the music most people "listen" to i think.

Thu. 9/13/18 9:49pm
Flash Strap:
it's pretty difficult unless you have a working knowledge of the labels, their sensibilities, and the recurring artists you gravitate towards (and their pseudonyms). but it's not that hard after a little while of exploring, honestly

Thu. 9/13/18 9:53pm
Dean:
A neighbor of mine has what I believe is an extremely large collection of library music. I think he's been at it for quite some time.

♥
Thu. 9/13/18 9:54pm
melinda:
@coel yeah, I think I've used the term incorrectly because the interestingness of the sound (or lack thereof) isn't a giveaway.

Thu. 9/13/18 9:55pm
coelacanth∅:
is there no sound? or is that it for my laptop?

♥
Thu. 9/13/18 9:55pm
melinda:
I learned the term right here on this show, and it was one of the things that drew me in.

Thu. 9/13/18 9:55pm
Flash Strap:
@C: yeah. the label's whole purpose is to take those recordings and market them to productions, and since some productions need that wild stuff, from industrial films to psych freakouts in hippie tv shows or b-movies, they have room for that too. it;s super market commercialism, but also not that unlike the pure music research of something like Bell laboratories

Thu. 9/13/18 10:00pm
Dean:
For intensity of collecting, I'd have to nominate my high school pal who took graveyard shift jobs in college during the school year to fund his habit. His focus, if you can call it that, was European progressive rock, punk, and metal, beginning in the mid-'70s. He parlayed his connections with LA area record stores into a business run on eBay. Essentially, he bought CDs by the pound from retailers, then very successfully auctioned them off on eBay.